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2 10-minute plays plus a one-act play to be performed Thursday through Sunday

Tim Gleason, left, KNOW Theatre’s artistic director, was awarded a medallion for his work at The Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival last year. At right is Ted Clement, who was Region 1 co-chair for the festival.(Photo: File)

Every year, students, professors and mentors gather for Region 1 of the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival not just to share their knowledge but also to judge the best student-written plays from throughout New England and eastern New York.

Tim Gleason — the artistic director at KNOW Theatre in Binghamton — has been involved with the festival for 17 years now, and he began to stage the winning Region 1 plays in 2012. No theater in the other seven regions does anything similar on the road to competing at the prestigious Washington, D.C., venue.

From Thursday through Sunday, two winners of the 10-minute play competition will be performed at KNOW: “Fair Play” by Shaquille Edwards and “Legs” by Hannah Berman. Rounding out the evening will be the one-act play “Imaginariness” by J. Julian Christopher, who serves as the chair for the National Playwriting Program of KCACTF Region 1.

On Saturday night, Edwards, Berman and Christopher will attend the performance and participate in an audience talkback afterward.

“He’s the new chair, so he’s not been here — he’s only heard about the place that takes the new plays,” Gleason said of Christopher in an interview last week. “I’m hoping he takes that back and starts some ripples on the pond with the national chair, Jim Holmes, who I met this year. I’m hoping to get that spark nationally.”

Last year, Gleason was awarded the Kennedy Center Gold Medallion for his commitment to the KCACTF and its goals. As the highest award given by the festival, it’s considered one of the great honors in theater education.

Each of the three plays offers something different for audiences. “Fair Play,” directed by Gleason, stars Eric Bill and Jessica Nogaret as a couple in their mid-20s arguing about selfishness in the bedroom.

Amoreena Wade directed the 10-minute play “Legs” for KNOW Theatre’s staging of the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival Region 1 winners.(Photo: File)

“Legs,” directed by Amoreena Wade (who starred in “The Mercy Seat” last month), is both timely in the wake of the #MeToo movement and also timeless because it deals with sexual harassment that women deal with on a daily basis.

Around age 15, Berman wrote down for two months all of the off-color comments and innuendos that men made to her as she went about her everyday life. The play is based on those experiences, featuring teen actors Katelyn Rundell as Maya and Grace Goosman as Vicky with three older men (Bill, Gleason and Jeff Tagliaferro) as their tormenters.

Because of the nature of the harassment and the youth of her teen actors, Wade has given a lot of thought about how to make Rundell and Goosman feel safe during rehearsals while still shining a light on the issue.

“This is an important story that needs to be told, but at what cost?” she said. “How uncomfortable is the audience going to be? How uncomfortable are these actresses going to be?

“I’ve talked to both of them at length, and ultimately it’s worth it to tell the story. I’m a firm believer in using art to make the world a better place, and if the audience is triggered or made uncomfortable, I hope they realize that this is an everyday experience for women.”

“Imaginariness,” the evening’s oddest offering, is directed by Joshua Sedelmeyer and centers on a puppet named Nicki (which Bill controls and voices) and her human friend Diane (Ilana Lieberman), with Amy L. Smith as Nonna and Nogaret, Gooseman, Parker Howland and Austin Kiley acting as a Greek chorus of sorts.

“I like being challenged when I pick up a new play to direct,” Sedelmeyer said. “I knew I had a cast that could help find a way and explore what the heck is going on in this crazy script. It’s wacky and it creates opportunities, and that creates even more questions to be answered. You need a really creative team to get through that, and we do.”

Nogaret added: “With this play, you can’t do anything wrong unless someone says ‘no.’ That’s been challenging. It’s an honor to do something like this — that’s why they’re called ‘plays.’”

Christopher’s play is not the first time Bill has worked with a puppet. Last May, he starred as Rod in SRO Productions’ bawdy “Avenue Q.”

“Coming from what I normally do — the three-hour musicals — a lot of times the rehearsals are working on it scene by scene,” he said. “For a 10-minute play and every rehearsal is two hours, the whole staging can happen in one day, and we just sort of play. It’s the first change I’ve had to sit and try different things, because usually you don’t get to run things as much or play around as much.”

He’s thrilled to be the only actor who appears in all three plays: “I get to work with three different directors, and every night is free acting lessons for me.”